390= 124 Taxation as affecting the Agricultural Interest. 
Number of 
agriculturists 
with indepen- 
dent incomes. 
Dependent 
members of the ^^jj^j 
agricultural 
classes. 
functions of ownership, occupation, and personal labour, charac 
teristic of our system, may to a greater or less extent be mergec 
in one and the same individual. But even beyond ai 
element of the calculation so disturbing as the blending o 
classes, the available statistical information we possess is far iron , 
complete. The Census Commissioners themselves express somol 
doubt as to the correctness of their enumeration of farm-labourers ' 
the yearly Agricultural Returns give the total only of separat 
holdings, not of separate farmers ; while the voluminous roll 
of the new 'Doomsday Book' make but little claim to precisior 
and notably require considerable discount for repeated or dupli 
cate entries of nominal landowners. 
Nevertheless, after guarding against such possible sources 
error, after passing over altogether as not distinctively agri 
cultural the holders of less than one acre of land, and aft( 
duly allowing for double tenancies, a rough general survey ( 
the numerical strength of the agricultural classes throughout tl 
whole United Kingdom will reveal a total of 300,000 lami 
owners, 1,000,000 occupiers of farms, big and little,* an 
upwards of 1,500,000 1 arm-labourers. Thus somewhat ov< 
2,800,000 individuals appear to be engaged in the ownershi 
cultivation, and tillage of land. 
Lest these figures should convey a wrong notion of tl 
numbers of the typical class to which the term of landlord 
popularly applied, it should be noted that not two-thirds 
those here enumerated possess so much as ten acres of land apieci 
and only one-fifth of the whole, or some 60,000 individua: 
own an estate oi over 100 acres of British soil. A more corre 
appreciation of the standing of many of these occupiers is al 
got, if it be borne in mind that the farms of at least 300,000 a 
less than ten-acre plots; that the Census Commissioners will n 
allow even the name of farmer to more than 250,000 persons 
England and Wales ; while little more than 90,00t) occupiers 
Great Britain, and 30,000 in Ireland, cultivate farms exceedi; 
100 acres in extent. These facts, and the consequent appro: 
mation in point of status between individual members of t 
upper and lower agricultural classes, must be remembered wh 
their general taxation is being computed. 
To the numbers thus arrived at, how many persons should ■ 
being properly dependent members of the seve: 
agricultural sections ? Bearing in mind the necessity of alio ■ 
ing for families where income of a non-agricultural charac 
supplements the receipts from land-rental or farm-earnin 
* Of tills million of occupiors, 530,000, or more than half, arc to bo fonn 
Ireland alouu. 
